Category: creating value

I reader asked why so many practitioners use high Equity Risk Premiums in their valuations and fairness opinions.

In particular, he mentioned a specific assumption set he had seen including:

ERP of 6.8%

company specific risk premium of 4%

He also commented on how haphazard the use of risk premiums can be and referenced a few sources I’ve used myself.

The ERP of 6.8% does seem high. However, it really isn’t possible to comment on the specifics of the company specific risk premium without knowing the company.

Although I haven’t updated my research on this in a few years, in my own work I still generally stick with a range of 3% to 5% for an ERP, before considering company specific factors, liquidity, and so on. Historically / empirically estimated ERPs shouldn’t change frequently since the time series used is long. Another few years on a 20 year estimation period shouldn’t have much impact.

Credit Life regulations have been live for long enough now that insurers are starting to feel the impact and the shake-up of amongst industry players is starting to emerge.

There have been plenty of debate around the regulations, in part because of the dramatic financial and operational impact they will have, and partly because of how imperfectly worded they are and the scope for interpretation.

I’ll be posting about this more in the coming days.

Basing the premium on initial or outstanding balance

First, a real anomaly is the ability for insurers to charge the capped premium rate either on initial loan balance or on the declining outstanding balance.

Insurance is misunderstood. Consumers ascribe malice where often practical restrictions are to blame.

Take deductibles for example. A deductible in an insurance claim decreases the number of claims an insurer has to deal with. More than that though, it reduces the claims where the administration costs of checking out the claim and paying it are large relative to the benefit to the policyholder. Sometimes these costs would have been larger than the claim itself.

In that case it does not make sense for the insurer to be processing and paying the claims – the increase in premiums required would be more than reasonable to policyholders.

Lemonade’s new “zero everything” removes the deductible and guarantees no premium increases for up to two claims per year. The reporting on this innovation has generally been silent on the practical reasons why this is hard for traditional insurers and easier for Lemonade.

Lemonade on the other hand explicitly recognise (or at least claim) that due to their AI-based claims underwriting process they can drive down costs and therefore manage small claims cost effectively.

This is important. Many complain about the lack of innovation in insurance. Removing deductibles isn’t innovation. Reducing costs to the extent it becomes viable is the step that enables differentiation and better value for customers.

Foreign person? Foreign company? Foreign trust? Local company owned by foreigners? Local company owned partly by foreigners? Foreign company owned by locals? Local company owned by locals with debt finance from foreigners? Local bank with foreign shareholders and repossessed properties? Local insurance company issuing policies to foreigners? BRICS bank? Foreigner married in community of property to local? Local living permanently overseas?

You don’t even need to look at this proposal being counterproductive, populist silliness.

I’m fortunate enough to live close to where I work with the wonderful MyCiti bus available as a genuine alternative to get to work. Imagine a world where I was paid (subsidised) not to use my car on particular days. Perhaps a combination of local government and employer-sponsored initiatives, with a scorecard and recognition or prizes or tiers of benefits for better green behaviour.

There’s so much more than can be done in this space and so much more that must be done in the coming years and decades. What would it take you to not drive your car to work?

I’m not really that close to developments in the Chinese economy. It is a large, complicated beast that is quite different from our own. Over the last year or so I’ve heard more and more from people who generally speak sense that the debt levels in China and the awful investment projects used to show the appearance of a strongly growing economy form a worrying pair of forces.

The story is a little bizarre and, frankly, a little bizarrely written, but the message is interesting. Nutella is provided at Columbia University Dining Halls. Students can eat as much Nutella as they can (or at least, as much as there is) without paying any marginal cost.

As it turns out, the problem is slightly worse than that given it’s alledged that students are spiriting awaystealing jars of Nutella from the dining hall to eat later. The actual theft or whatever they’re calling it here only compounds the problem.

The problem is the age-old Tragedy of the Nutella Commons. A good that has no marginal cost to any individual will be over-used to the detriment of all. If everyone can let their cattle graze on the village common, pretty soon everyone will put their cattle on the common rather than on their own land, overgrazing the common and destroying the ability of the lucerne or grass to regrow and be self-replenishing.

As it is with our roads. The full cost of using the roads (road maintenance, new roads) isn’t borne through fuel levies of vehicle licences (particularly heavy vehicles) therefore additional funds are needed from the general income tax revenues and at the same time the roads condition deteriorates rapidly.

As a thought-provoking aside, if the villages held a lottery and gave permanent use of the village common to one villager, even though inequality will have been massively increased, average and total utility will be greater than if the villagers were to destroy the common through overgrazing.

As part of the run-up to my overview of my own predictions for 2012, I thought i should highlight why I bother at all.
Most predictions, most of the time, will be wrong. Crystal balls aside, it is nearly impossible to reliably, accurately predict future complex events. However, the process of rigorously considering what might happen, what could go wrong, what the drivers of change are – all of those are really useful.
But why then bother making ultimate predictions if the “process” is where the value is? As it turns out, making the final prediction is part of the process. Paying poker without money at stake is a pointless exercise; there are no consequences to poor play (be it luck or skill that was lacking).
Making that firm and final prediction is important to ensure the process was rigorous and not an off the cuff guess.
Finally, evaluating part performance can’t suggest whether the predictions are improving, whether they are consistently biased or whether the system is working.
So, most predictions are wrong, but some are useful.